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How Trump Is Like Obama

There’s more continuity than difference between ‘nation-building at home’ and ‘America First.’

By

Josef Joffe

June 13, 2017 7:19 p.m. ET

Uncle Sam is getting pushed around by the rest of the world, and we aren’t going to take it anymore. That is the gist of President Trump’s “America First” doctrine. But let’s cut No. 45 some slack. He is not the first to chop away at the made-in-the-USA global order designed by Harry S. Truman 70 years ago. Pride of place must go to No. 44, Barack Obama.

What, that exemplar of internationalist virtue? True, President Obama did not trumpet “America First.” His standard shibboleth was “It’s time for a little nation-building...